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He decided to do a statue of lacrosse players to honor the traditional history of the area.</p> </div> <div class="transcript"> <h3>Transcript</h3> <p>Location: Walkway to Harborview Plaza (On Main St.)</p> <p>We’re down at the end of, at the west end of Main Street, where it ends you know? And there located is the Lacrosse Players. And I was asked to a, got given the opportunity to make a sculpture because I had brought Pat Zielke the mayor down to watch me in making the Gambrinus. And he says we can, we have some money for a sculpture so… And it was wide open, what I should do and so I read the history of La Crosse and I came up with the idea of the Lacrosse Players. And so, and then I checked it out with Ed Hill, over at the University. Whenever I got an idea of what I wanted to do I’d check with him, and if it didn’t bother him in any way that I would do it. So I came up with it.</p> <p>I wanted to be accurate enough to be acceptable so that it just isn’t disgusting to anybody, and would demean anybody, and just somehow be a bad thing. And so I did enough research that it would come out okay.</p> <p>This was the place where, this plain, this large plain here was a field where they played lacrosse. And they’d pick sides and they even had their favorites, the women and so forth. On the racquet as you look at the sculpture there’s a couple little things hanging off the side, those are little cloths, some colored cloths they would give the people to put on their racquet see?</p> <p>I moved slowly over to the Sister City thing. Now the piece that we traded, that little boy there, it’s not as big, but it sure is a dandy little piece and it’s a gem. And it’s not original in Epinal [France] either but it’s their, their uh, symbol. This is our symbol, that’s their symbol. And I got a good place, I found a good place for it. But I was thinking of having six, this be a park of Sister City sculptures, on each side as you go down. I thought it would be just great. This piece here, the La Crosse Players, the Gambrinus, I think their, I think their pieces that both artists and non-artists could like</p> <p>My name is Elmer Petersen and my connection is that I made the La Crosse Players sculpture.</p> </div> </div> <div class="col-lg-4 order-lg-2 col-md-4 order-md-2 col-12 order-1"> <iframe scrolling="no" src="https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/stories/elmer-peterson/?audio=1&view=2"></iframe> <a href="#">View Transcript</a> </div> <div id="photos" class="col-lg-12 col-md-12 col-12 slider order-3"> <div class="slider-info"> <h3>Gallery</h3> </div> <div class="slider-container"> <div class="slider"> <div class="item"> <span><img src="https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/wp-content/uploads/Peterson_Elmer_Photo-2-2.jpg" data-index="0" data-title="" data-caption="Elmer Peterson" /></span> </div> <div class="item"> <span><img src="https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/wp-content/uploads/Peterson_Elmer_Photo-1-2.jpg" data-index="1" data-title="" data-caption="Elmer Peterson" /></span> </div> <div class="item"> <span><img src="https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/wp-content/uploads/Peterson_Elmer_Photo_05-2.jpg" data-index="2" data-title="" data-caption="The Lacrosse Players sculpture" /></span> </div> <div class="item"> <span><img src="https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/wp-content/uploads/Peterson_Elmer_Photo_06-2.jpg" data-index="3" data-title="" data-caption="The Lacrosse Players sculpture " /></span> </div> <div class="item"> <span><img src="https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/wp-content/uploads/Peterson_Elmer_Photo_04-2.jpg" data-index="4" data-title="" data-caption="The Lacrosse Players sculpture " /></span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="arrow left"> <i class="fa fa-angle-left"></i> </div> <div class="arrow right"> <i class="fa fa-angle-right"></i> </div> </div> </div> </div></main> <footer> <div class="container"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-lg-6 col-12"> <small><em>Hear, Here</em> La Crosse | 漏 2025 <em>Hear, Here</em></small> </div> <div class="col-lg-6 col-12"> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/HearHereLondon/"><i class="fab fa-facebook-f"></i></a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/abeaujot" style="display:inline-block;position:relative;top:-3px;" ><img src="/wp-content/uploads/x-logo-white-icon.png" border="0"/></a></li> <li><a href="mailto:stories@hearherelacrosse.org"><i class="far fa-envelope"></i></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="modal"> <div class="row"> <div class="content"> </div> </div> </div> </footer> <script src="https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/wp-content/themes/hear-here/js/functions.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/wp-content/themes/hear-here/js/scripts.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type='text/javascript' src='https://www.hearherelacrosse.org/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js?ver=5.6.14' id='wp-embed-js'></script> </body> </html>